Last week, in reporting on the Boston Art Awards, I noted that “When the market is bad and the money is gone, the pressure is off and artists can make art for all the right reasons – to discover what’s meaningful to them, to express what it means to be human.” I can think of […]
The Last Green Valley in northeastern CT (and MA): An oasis of peace old-time nostalgia. Trails to hike, places to stay, meals to eat, gifts to buy, and what to do with the kids. When You Go —Yankee-recommended places to hike, stay, eat, and shop in Connecticut’s Last Green Valley. The skies don’t lie. From […]
$450,000 cost to build Fenway Park in 1912 (team worth in 2008: $816 million) $5 price for a 1912 World Series box seat at brand-new Fenway Park 10,454 fans who came to Fenway Park September 28, 1960, to witness Ted Williams’ final at-bat (a home run) 31,458 days between Boston’s fifth (1918) and sixth (2004) […]
Almost one year ago, in my March 6, 2008 posting, I called your attention to Greg Cook and his indispensable website, New England Journal of Aesthetic Research. NEJAR is probably the best regional art site in the country, so I was flattered when Cook invited me to submit nominations and to vote on the just-released […]
Saturday night I gave a speech to the Hillsborough, New Hampshire, Chamber of Commerce. It was their annual awards evening, where a business of the year and citizen of the year would be recognized, and generally a time when all the members could gather and sit at long tables in the American Legion Hall, have […]
Dorothy Eisner (1906-1984) was a thoroughly modernist painter who worked her way through most of the artistic trends of the 20th century from the Ashcan School and Social Realism to Abstract Expressionism. Her mature work, however, took the form of a rather Matisse-like application of painterly expressionism, very loose, free, and colorful, to paintings of […]
A figurative painting tends to be a representation of an unidentified person, a generalized image of the human form, often that of a model. A portrait is a likeness of a particular individual, an attempt in part to capture or conjure his/her being. Since the advent of photography, portrait painting has slowly been relegated to […]
POLITICAL AFFILIATION Cianci: Spoke at Republican National Conventions, wanted to be Ronald Reagan’s running mate in 1980, and knows Dick Cheney personally. Cicilline: Cofounded a College Democrats chapter at Brown University with John F. Kennedy Jr., was a delegate to a Democratic National Convention, and is friendly with Hillary Clinton. BEST RUDY GIULIANI MOMENT Cianci: […]
For eight years I’ve taught magazine writing at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. The class is always small, seminar-like, about 12 or 13 students. Over 15 weeks we get to know each other well. They write unflinchingly about their lives in personal essays, they explore the lives of strangers in their profiles, and they […]
The Portland Museum of Art is kicking off the New Year with a major rock show. Backstage Pass: Rock Camp; Roll Photography (January 22 through March 22) is an exhibition of some 200 photographs of rock and jazz musicians, all borrowed from the collection of a Maine summer resident who wishes to remain anonymous. What […]
Choosing the best chocolate shops in New England was a tough job – but someone had to do it. We know it’s more than a bit hackneyed to say, but choosing the best chocolate shops in New England was a tough job and someone did have to do it: An embarrassment of riches indeed. From the […]
If you’re female, live within driving distance of central Massachusetts, are fed up with winter, love to cook, scrapbook, quilt, knit, discuss books–whatever–and have several girlfriends who feel the same way, read on. We’ve found the place for you to spend a fun winter getaway weekend. It’s a 10-room, rose-colored Federal-style home on four acres, […]
